Scientists find ancient lake bed on Mars that may have been an oasis for life

The journal Science has published a trove of papers that characterize samples taken from mudstones — rocks made of mud and clay — that formed about 3.6 billion years ago in an area scientists have dubbed Yellowknife Bay. The data was collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover.

The Yellowknife Bay area where the mudstone samples were collected. (Science)

Teams of researchers, including many in Texas, determined that these mudstones must have been formed at the bottom of a lake, probably freshwater, that would have been conducive to life. That is — not too hot, not too cold, not too salty and not too acidic.

So while scientists haven’t found life, or direct evidence of microbial life, they have found conditions very much like those on Earth where microbes thrive by converting rocks and minerals into energy.

In addition to clays that would have formed in fresh water, researchers also found key biological elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur that are the building blocks of life on Earth.

Mudstone drill holes and powders. (Science)

“Back about 3.5 billion years ago this could have been a thriving oasis for microbes,” Johnson Space Center planetary scientist Doug Ming told me.

The clays Curiosity investigated are similar to those on Earth, indeed those in Houston as well. Residents of Houston are all too familiar with clay-like soils that shrink and swell, causing foundation cracks and myriad other problems for structures.

Smectite, the name given to deposits of clay prevalent across the Houston metro region, is very similar to the clays observed on Mars, Ming said.

The key is the C, N & S which is the more interesting part of the announcement along with the Ph and salinity of the water. I think that fairly tips the “could have been” statement into more than just 50/50 conjecture.

Wouldn’t a more existential bottom line be, after all these eons, what happened to Martian pond scum? And does the same fate await Earthling pond scum if we fail to recolonize Mars in time?

“During Mars’ evolution before 4 billion years ago, things may have looked a lot more promising. With a strong magnetic field, Mars had a thick atmosphere, protected from the ravages of the solar wind within its own magnetosphere. But, in an instant, a huge asteroid impact could have changed the course of Martian history forever.”

re: “Does this inane statement mean that all anti-science poeple are morons?”

Perhaps, not all morons are anti-science, but that creationist crowd, no matter how you spell them, is certainly out of touch with the modern world. Medieval or antediluvian would be better word choices.

That’s rich considering y’all have been very wrong about CO2-CAWG… And you follow websites like DeSmogBlog and Skeptical Science websites that are aimed to smear certain scientists. Look at the people that run those websites…

Global warming is unpaused and stuck on fast forward, new research shows.

“Previous estimates put the amount of heat accumulated by the world’s oceans over the past decade equivalent to about 4 Hiroshima atomic bomb detonations per second, on average, but Trenberth’s research puts the estimate equivalent to more than 6 detonations per second.”

“… the main point of the paper is that global warming is stuck on fast forward. Ice continues to melt, sea levels continue to rise, and the oceans continue to warm rapidly. While the warming of global surface temperatures has slowed somewhat, that appears to primarily be due to changing ocean cycles, particularly in the Pacific. However, these changes are mostly just causing the oceans to absorb more heat, leaving less for the atmosphere.”

This reminds me of my Black Friday shopping experience! I got to Best Buy a little late. I heard they had a heck of a deal for a 70 inch tv, but they were sold out, so I walked out with nothing but this great story.

Or maybe vice versa (much more likely, given Mars’ smaller gravity well and the fact that it is “downhill” to Earth). In either case, we need a lot more research before we can say for certain that there is (or has been) life on Mars, much less where it originated.

And, could you please repeat what you said about how this “discovery” will affect real life in the US of A on a day-to-day basis and how this “discovery” will justify the expenditure of funds allocated? There is no life on Mars, never was, and, if proven to be, so what? It was nothing but a microbe will no intelligence. We have plenty of those in Congress and it didn’t cost me anything to “discover” that.

How does this discovery affect you? Have you heard about those delivery drones that Amazon wants to use? The coding for them has grown out of NASA’s swarm satellite work. Have you used the camera on your cell phone? Both the imaging and the image processing technology were advanced significantly thanks to NASA. Have you heard about synthetic biology? Much of the work done in that field is funded by exobiology grants.

Discovery of life on Mars or on any extra-terrestrial body, in any form or stage of evolution, past or present, would be among the greatest discoveries in human history, right up there with fire & steam & electricity. And it would put yet another stake in the sacred heart of bronze age myths of gods & holy scriptures. That’s what.

This discovery does not affect real life in the US of A on a day-to-day basis. However, that fact is not important.

What’s important are the philosophical implications that would follow should extraterrestrial life, past or present, be discovered. That alone justifies the expenditure of funds. Such a discovery would affect my own life profoundly, even though it would not in any way change the practical, day-to-day course of my life.

Either you have the “sense of wonder” or you don’t. To those who have it, no explanation is necessary. To those who don’t, no explanation is possible.

Several decades ago I read that Mars had lost it atmosphere because of its gravity not being as strong as the Earths (both being about the same size). I haven’t heard anything about that idea of late. Has that idea been dismissed? It seemed like a nice simple explanation.

This continues to be an area of interest to planetologists. Right now, NASA is monitoring the MAVEN probe, launched on November 18 of this year and due to reach Mars on September 22, 2014. It will spend a year in orbit, monitoring Mars’ atmosphere and gathering data that will help us understand why Mars is both so similar and so different to Earth.

“To demand that artificial intelligence be humanlike is the same flawed logic as demanding that artificial flying be birdlike, with flapping wings. Robots will think different. To see how far artificial intelligence has penetrated our lives, we need to shed the idea that they will be humanlike.”

“The Seven Stages of Robot Replacement:

1. A robot/computer cannot possibly do the tasks I do.

2. OK, it can do a lot of them, but it can’t do everything I do.

3. OK, it can do everything I do, except it needs me when it breaks down, which is often.

4. OK, it operates flawlessly on routine stuff, but I need to train it for new tasks.

5. OK, it can have my old boring job, because it’s obvious that was not a job that humans were meant to do.

6. Wow, now that robots are doing my old job, my new job is much more fun and pays more!

This possible mud hole dried up “3.6 billion years ago”? I’ll be
more interested when we find some fossils that are farther up the food chain than say one cell life forms. Even that might rate a news story.

Just for comparison what do we know about the state of evolution here on Earth back that far? A quick search of the Internet indicates no life here period back then. It would be hard to believe that any life existed on Mars in that timeframe.

These scientific news flashes. Good for about 5 minutes of controversy Got a love em.

Just for comparison what do we know about the state of evolution here on Earth back that far? A quick search of the Internet indicates no life here period back then.

You missed the Archean stromatolites which date back that far. Though they are not incontestable proof of life (they are trace fossils; life with enough structure to create what most people think of as fossils didn’t get started until about 1 billion years ago), they are highly suggestive of it, especially when combined with the odd chemical signatures in the rock. And there are many who think that life began almost as soon as it was possible on Earth (i.e., at 4.2 or 4.3 Ga). But, because life back then was just microbes, it will always be very difficult to tell.

And we may find it just as likely that life on Earth, as on Mars or elsewhere, started & multiplied then was blasted out of existence somewhere along its path of evolution, started & thrived & flamed out again in fire or ice, & started & evolved & extinguished again & again & again until here we are, perhaps more organic fodder for ELE & cosmological annihilation. And if all life on earth should perish once again with nary a trace, we might rest in peace that it will try & try & try again & again & again in mud holes, in sulfurous cauldrons, in wherever organic molecules in solution commingle with electrical charges & discharges. Who knows, with a bit more digging around Mars & elsewhere, we just might ferret out another law of the universe, that life will find a way.

Scientists have a whole smorgasbord of theories how life may find a way, from hot soups to chilly ice, from black smokers to community clays.

Our money’s on a much simpler approach.

“Instead of developing from complex molecules such as RNA, life might have begun with smaller molecules interacting with each other in cycles of reactions. These might have been contained in simple capsules akin to cell membranes, and over time more complex molecules that performed these reactions better than the smaller ones could have evolved, scenarios dubbed “metabolism-first” models, as opposed to the “gene-first” model of the “RNA world” hypothesis.”